The presidential administration has deported and “disappeared” an LGBTQ+ Venezuelan asylum seeker under the accusation that his tattoos made him a member of a terrorist group. He received no court hearings and his lawyer and a lawyer representing the federal government both say they have no idea where he is now. Meanwhile, the president is defying a court order to stop deporting other immigrants under similar pretenses.
The deported man’s lawyer — Lindsay Toczylowski, the founder and president of Immigrant Defenders Law Center — wrote via X that her client fled Venezuela last year but was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) because ICE alleged his tattoos are connected to a terrorist group.
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“Our client worked in the arts in Venezuela. He is LGBTQ,” Toczylowski wrote. “His tattoos are benign. But ICE submitted photos of his tattoos as evidence he is Tren de Aragua.” The Tren de Aragua organization, whose name means a train from the northern Venezuelan state of Aragua, is a transnational organization that has been designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government.
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The unnamed client reportedly had an immigration hearing scheduled for last Thursday, but ICE agents didn’t bring him. The government attorney didn’t know where he was. Toczylowski and her organization tried emailing and calling the Texas ICE facility to which he was relocated. The facility said he was no longer there, and he later disappeared from an online detainee locator.
“Our client came to the U.S. seeking protection but has spent months in ICE prisons, been falsely accused of being a [Tren de Aragua] member and today he has been forcibly transferred, we believe, to El Salvador,” Toczylowski wrote. “We are horrified tonight thinking what might happen to him now.”
Our client worked in the arts in Venezuela. He is LGBTQ. His tattoos are benign. But ICE submitted photos of his tattoos as evidence he isTren de Aragua. His @ImmDef attorney planned to present evidence he is not. But never got the chance because our client has been disappeared.
— L-Toczylowski.bsky.social (@L_Toczylowski) March 16, 2025
The current administration has claimed that Tren de Aragua members have invaded the U.S., thus requiring ICE to begin forcibly removing its alleged members under the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law used to deport foreign hostile agents from the U.S. during times of declared conflict. Critics note, however, that Congress hasn’t legally declared that the U.S. is in a conflict. Critics also accuse the administration of focusing on the group’s so-called “invasion” as a mere pretext for its anti-immigrant mass deportation efforts, NBC News reported.
The administration has deported around 260 Venezuelans accused of being members of the aforementioned group without any public court hearings or trials before their deportations. On Saturday, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered the administration to turn around any flights deporting migrants to Venezeula and to stop deporting immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act — the administration ignored the judge’s order, calling it “unlawful” and saying that the president has “executive authority” to ignore federal court orders.
Boasberg ordered the administration to provide information about its Venezuelan deportation flights by noon Eastern on Monday. The U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) refused to do so, claiming that the judge had “no justification” for demanding the information.
The president called Boasberg a “radical left lunatic” in a Tuesday morning social media post. He and fellow Republicans have called for Boasberg’s impeachment. The president’s defiance of Boasberg’s orders and subsequent calls for the judge’s impeachment have pushed the country closer to a constitutional crisis in which the executive branch ignores the judicial branch without any consequences for doing so. The judicial branch can’t enforce its orders without cooperation from the DOJ, which is headed by administration loyalist Attorney General Pam Bondi.
In a rebuke to the president’s social media post criticizing the judge, U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts wrote on Tuesday morning, “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
“Public officials certainly have a right to criticize the work of the judiciary,” Roberts said in a separate statement, “but they should be mindful that intemperance in their statements when it comes to judges may prompt dangerous reactions by others.”
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